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Gatsha Mazithulela THE RACE TO THE TOP or TO THE BOTTOM
One of the reasons why human beings are dominant on this planet is because of their ability to adapt to change. You can say that they were given dominion over everything at Eden or you can say that they are the smartest animal that has ever existed, what remains is that other beings have become extinct yet our population is soaring more than ever.
In biological terms, we are very prolific competitors on this planet’s environment.
A law in cybernetics however says that everything that grows must reach a point of correction or diminishing returns but it seems human beings may have punched through that law and are doing more for their survival every time there is a scare of extinction.
In history, humans were almost decimated by the plague, then smallpox, tuberculosis, syphilis and gonorrhea, typhoid, cholera and malaria whilst in the background there was always the presence or diabetes, heart disease and cancers.
In all cases, we have developed solutions to these problems and some of them have been eradicated. Very recently, HIV/Aids was threatening to drive humans into extinction but with modern drugs administered in the correct way, even HIV infection has also become nothing more than a chronic condition.
In all these cases it has been our interventions through chemistry, immunology, genetics, microbiology, biochemistry, physics and mathematics that has saved human beings from these ravages. Biotechnology, the combination of these has taken a leading role, further emasculating these germs through the famed genetic engineering and its infamous products, the GMOs.
Yes many of these medicines are now made using GMO bacteria, viruses, cell and tissue cultures so that we get the best medicine to knock out the disease in a very specific way. So in terms of medicine, we are alive and well and multiplying because of biotechnology and its GMOs. It is undisputed. How about on the food side?
According to the United Nations Population Fund and the Food and Agricultural Organisation, population growth is fast approaching the rate of increase in food production. In simple terms, life on this planet is becoming unsustainable into the future for when we can’t produce enough food, that law of cybernetics will kick in.
There will be massive famine until the population of human beings is reduced to the correct level or until there are no humans left, whichever is easier for the nature to achieve. Before you start hoarding food, let me explain why this will not happen. It is because of several related discoveries, all linked to genetics and leading to the so called green revolution.
The first major impact came from the introduction of hybrid seeds which are made through classical genetics and selection on experimental farms. These seeds outperform our old open pollinated varieties by up to 10 fold in terms of yield.
Only the very old people will remember seeds like the famous SR52 maize seed that you could harvest, dry and replant year after year. It provided for a nice local loop in agricultural economics but if you planted it today, you would see how relatively useless it is compared to the hybrids that now exist.
This same scenario has been repeated for almost every crop and vegetable that exists, generating very high yielding plants which are shorter [they use more energy producing food rather than getting tall], with disease and drought resistance etc.
The second major impact came when we could now isolate individual genes and track, at a genetic level, how these advantages come about. The so called, marker-assisted breeding was born and the screening of genetic mutants for desirable traits was accelerated.
The mutant rice plants that were found in this way led to the so called green revolution in Asia when mutant rice plants with all the desired characteristics were now isolated. Now there is enough rice for the whole world.
There were alarm bells when a famous economist, Malthus had predicted that the world population would grow at a faster rate than food supply but, thankfully, his prediction did not come true.
Thanks to the green revolution in agriculture, the production of food per person rose by nearly 0.5 percent per year from 1961 to 1999 and this caused the real prices of agricultural food ingredients to fall by nearly 2 percent per year over that same period. There are basically two reasons why supply of food has exceeded the demand for it during this time.
The first is that major crop production technology improved over the last 50 years and crop yield per acre also followed upwards. The second is that the acreage under cultivation increased during that time. On a global basis, the acreage planted increased from 1961 to 1995 and then declined slightly after 1995.
According to U.N. statistics and forecasts, the population of the world in 2000 was around 6.18 billion, but is expected to become 8.15 billion in 2025 (representing a 31.84 percent increase in just 25 years). Such population growth will of course result in an increase in the demand for food.
However, the global acreage under cultivation is no longer increasing because of global climate change or for environmental reasons, and so the only way to increase food supply is to increase crop yields.
If no new production technologies are developed and adopted, the food supply curve will no longer shift positively. Such an increase in demand that is not matched by a corresponding increase in supply in the market for food will lead to an increase in world food prices.
Before we throw out this GMO technology, under the guidance of our ever-active NGOs from Europe, we must understand that developed countries can manage to absorb an increase in world food prices and we cannot.
The ratio of expenditure on food to gross national product (GNP) in most developing or under-developed countries is at least 50 percent. If food price is increased by 10 percent, it may result in a food crisis in developing countries. However, such increases may not have much of an impact on developed countries since the ratio of their expenditure on food to their GNP is much smaller (below 2 percent).
This is why the regulations and the extent to which consumers accept or reject GMOs should be a very calculated and unemotional response.
You may refuse to introduce technology that increases food production and lowers price only to end up borrowing money from the same Europeans that led the ban on GMOs so that you can buy more food from them! So what are other countries in the world planting or doing about decreasing the cost of food?
The U.S. may plant more biotech crops than anywhere else in the world — 170.43 million acres’ worth in 2011, with Brazil in second at 75 million acres under cultivation — but other countries are catching up.
According to the just-released annual report on biotech seed use from the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA), planting of genetically modified crops globally grew 8 percent last year. Growth by developing countries jumped by about 50 percent.
For the first time, GMO cultivation in developing countries is expected to exceed industrial countries acreage in 2012; this is contrary to the prediction of critics who, prior to the commercialization of the technology in 1996, prematurely declared that biotech crops were only for industrial countries and would never be accepted and adopted by developing countries.”
A 94-fold increase in acreage from 1.7 million hectares in 1996 to 160 million hectares in 2011 makes biotech crops the fastest adopted crop technology in the history of modern agriculture.
The production efficiencies that are being achieved using these techniques are driving the cost of food down in those countries and they have excess to export and even make stock feed from perfectly good maize and soybean.
That is how we end up with a Brazilian chicken arriving here at half the prize of a local. It is due to low cost of food and there is no way we are going to compete unless our costs also come down. However, if we are saying that we won’t plant GMO’s we must also know that that all industries relying on our own agricultural feedstock will remain uncompetitive on a global scale. That is just the plain truth.
Failing to embrace technology can lead to spectacular economic failures. Remember how wrong the following people were:
- “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” — Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.
- “There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” —Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977.
- “This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.” — Western Union internal memo, 1876.
- “The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys.” — Sir William Preece, chief engineer of the British Post Office, 1876.
- “The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?” — David Sarnoff’s associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s.
- “Radio has no future. Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible. X-rays will prove to be a hoax.” — William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, British scientist, 1899.
- “Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value.” — Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre.
- “The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon.” — Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria 1873.
We should embrace technology and not be judged to be candidate for the list above for having thrown out the technology that is feeding the whole world.
Online Reporter